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Megan Tjelle, 29, shared the details of her 105-pound weight loss journey in a viral TikTok video that’s racked up 1.8 million views.
Walking played a major role in her weight loss. She also credits getting herself onto a consistent schedule — sleeping for eight hours a night, waking up at the same time every day and eating at regular hours — as what she needed to get her health on track.
And she noticed some things she didn’t expect — like skinny privilege and body dysmorphia — along the way. She shared her story with TODAY.com.
Focusing on her career played a part in her weight gain
Tjelle was fit when she was young — sports and activities like gymnastics, cheerleading, track and cross country kept her active for hours every day.
But when she was in college and nursing school, she had to scale back her exercise. “I was completely focused on school, and I didn’t have any kind of sports keeping me active,” she tells TODAY.com. “I feel like I started to neglect myself because I was putting everything into studying. The stress eating started then.”
Her first job after nursing school had her working 12-hour overnight shifts: “That definitely made things a lot worse. I was eating at weird times and not having a consistent schedule. I was putting everything into my nursing career, but not putting anything back into myself.”
That changed in October 2022, when she got a new nursing job with regular Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 hours. “That completely changed things for me. It was the first time I had ever had that kind of schedule in my adult working life.”
She pushed herself to go to the gym
While Tjelle is a fan of “hot girl walks,” living near Chicago means that walking…
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